


I Hear You in My Heart (You Carry Me Always)

by nickelsandcoats



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 02:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelsandcoats/pseuds/nickelsandcoats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade can't help but hear their song beating quieter and quieter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Hear You in My Heart (You Carry Me Always)

**Author's Note:**

> For thegameison_sh's cycle 4, round 4 challenge: timeless requiem.
> 
> I am so flattered (and flabbergasted!) that this little story tied for second place in this round! Thank you to everyone who read and voted!

Ever since he could remember, Gregory Lestrade had heard a song tugging low and deep in his heart.

And ever since he had been old enough to understand, he knew what that song was and how to use it.

When his gran died, the song was louder and louder and louder until it finally got whisper-quiet and stopped when she did. When his mum died, the song was a quiet low hum that burned through his consciousness and wormed its way into his ears. For months, that song was all he heard every time he closed his eyes.

As he grew up, he was able to push the song away, to only hear it when he needed to.

The first time he used it on the job, it was to see if a kid would make it until the ambulance arrived or if he would bleed out before it got there. The song beat in his ears like a bass drum steady and slow until suddenly it wasn’t and the kid’s blood washed away in the rain. Lestrade stood up, shook his head to clear it, and walked away from the body in the street. He walked around the corner and leaned against the crumbling, dirty brick wall and tipped his head back against the rain. He let the sound of it hitting his eyelashes chase the lingering memory of that slow steady beat out of his head. He had to sleep tonight.

 

The only person whose song he never heard was Mycroft Holmes’. The silence surrounding the man disturbed Lestrade, who found the lack of the tug and pull disconcerting. After a while, he realised the reason he didn’t hear Mycroft’s song was because it was tied up in his. When they lay in bed together, Lestrade’s heart was quiet and gentle, the song a soft hum in the back of his mind, nearly forgotten.

 

The only other person he’d known who’d lost their song was John Watson.

The good doctor’s song, the first time they met in Sherlock’s new flat, was loud and strong and determined, the heart of a protector. It was so loud, in fact, that it nearly drowned out Sherlock’s more erratic, quicker song.

When he saw John and Sherlock together again after the end of that Chinese smuggling case, John’s song was gone and Sherlock’s wildly unpredictable cadence had gained a smooth, thumping backbone. It sounded like a heartbeat.

 

The whole pips case had Lestrade’s teeth on edge. Sherlock’s song was even more erratic than before, and it was distracting in the extreme. Over the years of their acquaintance, Lestrade had attuned himself to Sherlock’s song, telling himself that it was just a precaution when in fact, it was so that he would know the instant something went wrong. It had saved Sherlock’s life more than once.

And now, racing to a pool that had been blown to bits, Lestrade could hear Sherlock’s song beating an insistent _help help help help help help help help help him help him helphim helphim  helphimhelphimhelphimhelp_ and overlaying that, the strong steady thrum of John’s repeating the same, doubling and trebling until the feedback loop was so overpowering he could barely see, breathe, or even think. His own pulse raced and thumped in time with their combined song.

As he drew closer, the song, instead of increasing in volume and intensity, began to fade. John’s steady beat was slowing, quieting, and Sherlock’s trilled in panic before it, too, began to slip its rhythm, fading in and out of Lestrade’s consciousness, tugging insistently at his heart⎯

 _helphimhelphimhelphim helphelphelphimhelp_

⎯and then he was scrabbling at the rubble with his bare hands, digging, cursing under his breath, praying for some miracle that would keep their songs going, keep them from fading away to their dissonant ends.

His fingers hit flesh and he gasped in relief. He dug harder, faster, and when he unearthed them, they were clinging to each other, bloodied, bruised, barely breathing, but _there_.

As he uncovered more of them, John’s song stopped, and the entire world held its breath and came to a standstill. Sherlock’s song screamed in blind panic and then took a deep breath itself and said

 _  
NO   
_

and there was a soft thump thump thump as John’s song tiptoed back and the soft trill of Sherlock’s own intertwined with it until both of their songs beat as one⎯not Sherlock’s, not John’s, not John’s subsumed with Sherlock’s⎯but together as they breathed and Lestrade cried with relief.

\--Fin--


End file.
